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May, 2004 - CHINA - - The air was as thick as cream in Shanghai. I never thought I would make such a favorable observation on the air quality in Shanghai, but it was damn nice to be able to breath again. In Tibet, I often felt like a 500 pound Iowa woman whenever I labored up a flight of stairs. It was a descent of 21,000 feet in nearly nine days, and it represented a journey from the highest mountain on the highest plain on earth, to one of the most populous cities on earth, nestled on a smog choked swath of land on the Pacific Ocean. There is a certain gratitude, appreciation, and finality when you return home from a trip. Many times you need a vacation after a trip; you need a vacation every time after traveling.
Mt. Everest looked like a long day trip from the camp I had made. There were several hundred other tents at Advance Base Camp - ABC to everyone who had made the two day hike from the main base camp. I was in the vast minority of people at ABC who were not in an expedition, but I had spoken to many people on different expeditions who spoke anxiously of how close the highest peak in the world was to their camp. You could almost make out a successful summit attempt without any binoculars, and even though there was only a modest north slope separating the camp from the summit, over a mile separating myself and a dozen expeditions from the most prestigious mountaineering prize on earth. As close as it looked, it was still impossible to ignore the incredible danger the mountain posed to summit attempts - over 200 deaths to the 900 successful summit climbs. As easy as it looked to summit, it was over a mile higher than ABC. I was not climbing the mountain this trip. I was 6,500ft higher than I'd ever been before I arrived in China, and I was humbled every ten or fifteen minutes by the incredible altitude only found on a few places on earth. Only in the Himalayas could you hike to 6,500 meters without any mountaineering experience or equipment. There was a inconspicuous trail heading from Base Camp to Intermediate Base Camp up to ABC, appropriately named the Serac Highway. Huge seracs flanked the precarious trail. The whole valley was a glacier, but a thin layer of rock and dirt somehow remained in the middle of the East Ronghpu glacier. |
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It was cold on the morning of |